Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Christmas 2007

A very happy Christmas to all who read this page. We had an absoutely packed church for the Christmas vigil Mass at 6pm. A good crowd of about 60 for the sung midnight Mass in the extraordinary form and no trouble despite the recent non-story about priests moving midnight mass to earlier in the evening to avoid drunks etc (as if this was news). Christmas Day Mass was quite low key but again a good crowd. No trouble with Come Home for Christmas then! Maybe more useful would be come home for Epiphany or something like that since there is no problem filling the church on for Christmas.

In the octave of Christmas, as well as the daily 10am Mass there will be an EF Mass at 11 each day (apart from Saturday ( EF at 10), Sunday and Monday) with a Missa Cantata on New Year`s Day to include the Veni Creator to gain the plenary indulgence. On the Epiphany we will have the 6pm EF form Mass at SS Peter and Paul`s Longbenton with a social afterwards to celebrate twelfth night.

Fantastic to see things slowly improving at the papal liturgy last night too with the restoration of the seventh candle for a Pontifical Mass. God bless Pope Benedict! H/T to NLM

MIchaelj, I`m no longer in Gateshead. I was moved to Forest Hall (outskirts of Newcastle) in 2005. We had an EF Mass today but the turnout wa not geat. However I have a pastoral need myself! Gateshead is becomng a hotbed of traditional liturgical activity as my next post will explain.

Truly, I would not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church impressed me.

St Augustine: Contra epistolam Manichaei 5.6

“The usus antiquior should be a standard element of the cultural capital of all Latin Rite Catholics since it so effectively resists secularism and satisfies the post-modern hunger for coherent order, beauty and an experience of self-transcendence.”